DK - WOW! The Visual Encyclopedia of Everything

245

▲ NEW TOWNS

In the factory areas,

villages grew into huge

towns almost overnight.

Workers’ houses were

built as cheaply as possible,

and often crammed closely

together. The industrial

towns were dark places,

where the air was filled

with smoke from the

factory chimneys.

▲ INVENTIONS

The driving force of the

Industrial Revolution was

the rapid development of new

ideas, methods, and machinery.

Newly invented steam engines

were used to power innovative

new machines that transformed

the mining, textiles, and

metalworking industries.

Medicine box used

to treat cholera

Plans for a

new method

of converting

iron into steel,

invented by

Henry Bessemer

in 1855

Disease

People lived crowded together in the

new factory towns. They had no proper

sewers, rubbish collection, or clean

drinking water. Diseases like cholera,

typhus, and typhoid often swept

through the towns, killing thousands.

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